Enter the Dragon (1973)

There are films that perform well at the box office, and then there are films that shift the entire landscape of what gets made next. Enter the Dragon, released in 1973 through a co-production between Concord Productions, Warner Bros. Pictures and Orange Sky Golden Harvest, belongs firmly in the second category. It arrived as one of the first major Hollywood-backed martial arts productions, a collaboration between American studio money and Hong Kong filmmaking talent that felt genuinely new to Western audiences at the time. The premise is stripped back to something almost pleasingly pulpy: a martial artist accepts an invitation to a tournament hosted by a reclusive crime lord on a private island, using the opportunity as cover for a covert operation. It is, in broad strokes, a spy thriller wearing a kung fu film's clothes, and it works rather well for exactly that reason.

Robert Clouse directed, working from a script by Michael Allin. Clouse was a journeyman director whose career was polished but unremarkable before and after this project, which makes it all the more telling that Enter the Dragon stands so far above his other work. The film runs 102 minutes, a tight and efficient runtime that keeps things moving without ever feeling rushed. For context on the broader Hong Kong cinema that preceded and surrounded it, it is worth reading the reviews of Come Drink with Me and A Better Tomorrow, both of which sit within the same national tradition, even if their tones and eras differ considerably. The film's cultural footprint spread well beyond the cinema screen, feeding into the wider pop culture of the decade and beyond.

The cast is a genuine mixture of worlds. Bruce Lee is the centre of everything, a performer who had already built a reputation through television work and earlier Hong Kong productions before this film brought him to an enormous international audience. Alongside him, John Saxon brings a recognisable Hollywood presence, and Jim Kelly, a real-life martial arts champion, adds another dimension to the tournament's ensemble. Sek Kin, a veteran of Cantonese cinema, plays the villain Han with the kind of controlled menace that anchors the whole enterprise. Ahna Capri rounds out the principal cast in a supporting role. For those interested in how the action genre has evolved since, there is an interesting contrast to be drawn with a film like The Raid 2, which represents a very different generation's answer to the same basic question of how to put extraordinary physical skill on screen. Equally, anyone who has spent time with the decidedly more modest Max Havoc: Curse of the Dragon will understand quite quickly what separates a film built around a genuine icon from one that merely gestures in that direction.

A-Z World Movie Tour Hong Kong The martial arts movie that really broke Hollywood. Sure there was martial arts movies before this but nothing smashed like this. Bruce Lee is a captivating and mesmerising performer. Yes the acting is a little cliche. Yes the story is a little hammy but it's just a great movie. There will never be a movie star with the aura of Bruce Lee again. It inspired so many including a young Jackie Chan who is an extra here... and many more. Even videogames such as Mortal Kombat and Tekken get their roots from this great movie.

That point about legacy is the one that stays with me longest after each revisit. The pop culture threads running out from this film are almost impossible to fully map, and the fighting game connection is one I find myself mentioning to anyone who claims not to be interested in martial arts cinema. If a film is responsible for shaping the grammar of Mortal Kombat and Tekken, it has clearly done something right. For me, that is the measure of it: not just a great film in its own terms, but one of those rare things that genuinely changed what came after. They really don't make them like this any more, and I'm not sure they ever could again.

Rating: ★★★★½  | Year: 1973  | Watched: 2025-06-26

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Trailer

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Related on Movies With Macca

More from Hong Kong: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · Hand of Death (1976) · Come Drink with Me (1966) · Street Fighter (1994)
More from the 1970s: Fantastic Planet (1973) · Here and Elsewhere (1976) · Italianamerican (1974) · Punishment Park (1971)
More action: A Better Tomorrow (1986) · The General (1926) · Hand of Death (1976) · Daredevil (2003)